Header Challenge 29th December 2010 – Betwixed or Between.

 

This weeks header challenge is the last one for this year 2010. imac had the choice for this weeks topic and he has gone with betwixed or between as it is the week between 2 great celebrations that of Christmas and New year.

There are lots of things that are between but choosing the right one for my header is never an easy choice.

I could have gone with a photo of the magical time between day and night as the sun sets producing stunning colours in the evening sky.

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Or back to the beauty of summer looking down the river as it travels between it’s banks.

river banks-1

Keeping on the same line of thought how about the bridges that span between the sides of a river, in this case the Samuel Beckett bridge which allows Dubliners to travel between one side of the Liffey and the other.

bridge between river banks-1

In the end I’ve chosen photo taken at the Waddington Airshow. It shows the Lancaster bomber between its fighter escorts. This bond between these historic and illustrious aircraft is now known the world over.

Well 2010 is soon coming to a close (I can’t believe the next header challenge will be in 2011). I hope you have enjoyed sharing my journeys and photography with me this year. Don’t worry there will be plenty more to see in the new year.

Don’t forget to leave your comments, good or bad on everything you see, good healthy criticism is the best way to grow as a photographer, and I value all your comments and suggestions.

It just leaves me to say, remember to check in on my other header challenge friends, Tom-fishing guy, imac, Lanny and Gailsman and I wish all my readers the very best for 2011, and may the New Year bring joy and happiness (and lots of photo opportunities) to you all.

Header Challenge 22nd December 2010 – The Light.

 

Well Christmas is almost upon us so this is the last header challenge before Christmas. This week it has been my turn to choose the theme for us to create our header on.

I chose ‘the Light’. I thought it would give everyone a good scope to come up with something creative, it will be interesting to see what the others come up with.

My first thought was that I wanted to use candles as my light…

the light-1

but, I felt it needed a little bit more…

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so as it is Christmas (or very nearly) I added Jesus to the photo as he is regarded as bringing light to the world at Christmas.

Now for my header to fit it needs to be in the landscape format so I had a bit of a play adding extra candles and foliage…

the light-1-2

In the end I’ve gone for a shot taken very low to the ground to get the angle I wanted.

I hope you like it.

I wonder what my fellow headbangers have come up with this week for their headers.

Remember this Christmas to add the true light to your Christmas celebrations.

Header Challenge 15th December 2010 – Anticipation

 

As most of you know each Wednesday I join some friends, Tom-fishing Guy, imac, Gailsman and Lanny to create a header based on a theme chosen by a member of the group.

This weeks challenge has been set by Lanny. She has chosen anticipation for her header theme this week.

With three kids I thought getting a picture of anticipation would be easy, but, most of the family have gone down with the flu bug over the last couple of weeks. So unless you count anticipation of getting rid of the snuffles, I don’t think they were in the mood for photographs.

So I thought I would look through my back catalogue of photos to see if I had any that would fit the theme of anticipation.

How about anticipation at the start of a relay race…

anticipation-1

Anticipation of a lovely new day…

anticipation-1

Anticipation of childhood new discoveries…

anticipation-1

But I felt that at this time of year the biggest anticipation is the celebration of the coming of Christ at Christmas. So this week I have chosen to take a photo of our nativity scene to show my families and hopefully thousands of others’ anticipation of the Christmas message.

Luke 2:11 "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Anticipate and Celebrate the real reason for Christmas this year.

 

Header Challenge 8th December 2010 – Snow.

 

This weeks challenge is that winter favourite Snow.

Now for a change we have had some snow already in South Lincolnshire. Nowhere near as much as many other parts of the UK but even the little we have had seems to have caused chaos. Schools have been closed though much to my daughters disgust not theirs. Even my university the Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln closed its campus for about a week due to the snow.

It may cause problems for many but it certainly is beautiful to look at.

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though I don’t think our chickens agreed.

So what should I use as this weeks header?

I thought a first to go with footprints in the snow…

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but couldn't get it to fit the full width of the header bar and I wanted something a little better.

How about…

winter-1

our dog Corky in the snow but again wrong shape for the header bar.

I even looked at a photo I took of the snow as it melted from our garden table forming some very strange shapes…

winter-1-2

but it was in the wrong format for the header bar so I chose a photograph taken from an upstairs window looking out across the fields of South Lincolnshire whilst the snow continued to fall.

Hope you like it and are enjoying the picture opportunities snow whilst it lasts.

Don’t forget to leave your comments on my blog and then check out the other snow pictures of the headbangers, just follow the links in the right hand menu bar.

Header Challenge 1st November 2010 – Wheels.

Well this weeks exciting header challenge has been chosen by Gailsman and for his choice he has gone with ‘Wheels’.

Now the first thing you may think with wheels is cars or bikes but lots of other things have wheels too.

In our house the biggest use of a wheel seems to be for the playing of Mario Karts on the Nintendo Wii…

wheel-1

I’m sure many of you have also used a wheel in your house (or in Pizza Hut) when you have been cutting up your pizza’s…

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Some of you will even use a wheel to adjust your heating thermostats…

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and if you haven’t used any of those, how about Apples pride and joy the iPod with its revolutionary wheel interface.

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If you still haven't found a wheel you have used in the above selection, what about looking on your desk at that mouse you are holding I’m sure that may have a wheel on it…

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you may even be sat on a chair at that desk that has these…

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castor wheels.

Many objects these days have wheels but one of my favourite wheels are just for watching and that is why I have chosen for my header this week a pair of Catherine Wheels (pinwheel) taken at a firework display at a friends house.

I hope you have enjoyed exploring wheels with me this week. I wonder how many wheels you can find around your homes?

Don’t forget to leave a comment then drop in on the other headbangers to see what they have come up with for the ‘Wheels’ header challenge.

For those of you who also noticed it was Wheels by ACDC playing on my iPod here’s  your chance to listen to a great rock track.

Eggs Surprise!

We keep a few chickens in our back garden here in Lincolnshire as many of you know. Having fresh eggs daily from your own chickens is really nice and they always seem to taste better when they are your own chickens.

Well we got a bit of a surprise this lunchtime when we collected in our chickens egg from their nest boxes. They were all cracked! Nothing really unusable about that as eggs get cracked all the time. The surprise was why they had cracked.

They had all frozen solid within their shells…

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So instead of hard boiled eggs we had hard frozen eggs!

It was so unusual as in all the years we have had chickens we have not seen it before. So I just had to get the camera out and take some pictures.

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Poor chickens, time for extra straw and a nice warm mash!

Header Challenge 24th November 2010 – Collage

Now this weeks header challenge theme has been set by by my good friend imac. He has decided he wants us to have a go at creating a collage.

Having checked, a collage is described as being, derived from the French word for "gluing". It originally referred to the physical process of gluing a number of pictures, photos or drawings onto a flat piece of paper, in order to create an artistic composition.

Well I’m sure I can do that with the help of Photoshop. As for the glue well the computer has a cut and paste option  for placing your photos so there is the glue.

My first thought was a group of images, in this case flowers…

flower collage

Then I thought why not be a bit more adventurous…

kez collage

by turning one photo into numerous Polaroid's and then sticking them back together again.

I tried a few different ones…

esther collage

some with backgrounds and some without.

Harriet Collage

I eventually decided on a photo with all my daughters in. I then laid them out and stuck them onto a virtual desk, I hope you like it.

If you want to know how I did it, leave me a request, via my comments section and I will endeavour to write a detailed explanation on it in a future blog.

Don’t forget to check out the other members of the headbangers, imac, Tom-fishing guy, Lanny and Gailsman to see what collages they have come up with for this weeks challenge.

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Header Challenge 17th November 2010 – Childhood Antics.

Welcome to this weeks header challenge. This weeks theme was chosen by yours truly. Therefore for this weeks theme I chose `Childhood Antics`. Now I thought that would be a wide enough subject matter to produce lots of interesting headers and posts from my friends in the headbanger team, Tom-fishing guy, imac, Lanny and Gailsman.

Now being a parent I have lots of photos that could be used for this topic as you may have guessed. So for something different I haven't taken any new shots for this weeks header but dug some out of my collection,  and no I'm not just being lazy these were harder to choose than taking new ones.

Harriet-1

We have `look at me I cute`.

girls 

`fun in a tunnel`

girl2

`Shall I jump?`

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`Who needs toys when you have the box!`

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I’m the king [queen] of the world!`

girl3

and the old time classic `swing time!`

I hope you enjoyed my children's antics and yes there are three different girls in the photos they just all look very similar, we call them clones. Poor kids.

I wonder what the girls will think when they see this post ?

Let me know what you think via the comments button and then have a look at what the other headbangers have come up with this week.

Header Challenge 10th November 2010 – Persimmon.

 

Now this weeks challenge, chosen by Lanny is just one word, ‘persimmon’. Now in Lanny’s neck of the woods persimmon trees and fruit might be easy to come by, but, over here in beautiful Lincolnshire, England its almost unheard of.

I understand that persimmon is a burnt orange type of colour much like our sunsets.

Lincolnshire Sunset

Or the colour of beautiful flowers…

persimmon coloured flower

They may be the right colour, but, as we are in Lincolnshire and don’t have access to persimmon trees they still aren't the fruit.

In Boston home to St Botoloph’s church, known locally as the stump, persimmon is seen on many signposts…

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Not advertising fruit trees but rather, a house building company, Persimmon Homes.

persimmon homes banner

They are building a new riverfront complex in Boston Lincolnshire so that is what I have chosen to use as my header.

I hope you like my take on the theme Persimmon, especially you Lanny, let me know what you think and don't forget to visit my other headbanger friends to see their take on this weeks challenge. Just follow their links at the top of my right hand column.

Headbanger Challenge 3rd November 2010 – Fall has Arrived.

 

This weeks headbangers challenge has been set by Tom- fishing Guy and is `Fall has Arrived`. Now over here we don’t call it the fall but stick to Autumn. So I hope you don’t mind Tom but I’ll sub head this weeks header with ‘Autumnal’.

Now autumn colours I love, all the golden yellows vibrant gold's and bronzes of the leaves. The bright red of the berries in the hedgerows, they all make for an outstanding photo opportunity.

So to try and get that great shot I headed over to a little lake in my neighbouring village to take some photos for the header challenge.

Autumn-1-6 

Now the lake isn’t very big but there is still an abundance of trees surrounding it.

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Unfortunately as you can see from this photo I arrived a little late for some of them as they had already lost a lot of their leaves.

So it called for a bit more creativity.

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Holding the camera just above the ground gave me this more exciting photo.

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I used the berries and tree trunk in this shot to frame the fishing jetty and Lily pads.

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It must be nice to live in this bungalow and have the beauty of the lake at the bottom of your garden.

I hope you like the little Autumn jaunt down to the lake. Do you think the different camera angles have worked? Let me know what you think in the comments section.

If this is your first visit why not stay a while have a look around then pop over to see the other entrants in this weeks header challenge. Just follow the links at the top of my right hand column.

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Header Challenge 27th October 2010 – Sound Creations

 

Hi this weeks header challenge is Sound Creations selected by Gailsman.

The creation of sound is something close to my heart. I like to think I create music whilst others may just call it noise. I do play the percussion after all.

My header photos though have been taken from our summer flower festival held every year in Spalding Lincolnshire.

Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (98)

Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (55)

Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (78)

Spalding Flower Parade 2008 (35)

There are always numerous marching bands of different genres dotted throughout the parade showing of their musical talents and helping the parade go with a swing.

Why not check out my other headbanger entrants just follow the links to their blogs at the top of my right hand menu bar.

Sorry fore the late posting this week but our internet went down again and I didn’t think I was going to be able to post at all so better late than never I hope you agree?

 

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Header Challenge 20th October 2010 – Sepia.

This weeks header challenge has been chosen by imac. His choice this week is ‘Sepia’.

Sepia is the name given to the photographic development process used to enhance its archival properties and to give the photograph a warmer hue. The process got its name from the adding of a pigment to the chemical development of the photograph, derived from the Sepia officinalis cuttlefish found in the English channel.

With modern digital developments and printing processes the sepia pigment is no longer required to assist the photographs protection against the elements. Now sepia toning is mainly seen in either very old photographs or new photos digitally enhanced to look old.

Most photo editing software can now change a colour image into a sepia toned image giving the illusion that the photograph is old or just to add a warming effect to enhance the image.

sepia Urquhart castle

The effect can be subtle as in the above photograph. just to add warmth to an image.

It can also be used to give an illusion of age to a photograph…

sepia Harriet maid

 

helped in this picture by the addition of period costume.

Pictures of historical societies can also be enhanced by the technique…

sepia bikes 3

as in this group riding their period bicycles through Spalding in Lincolnshire.

 

sepia bikes

Changing the tone to sepia has helped to give the illusion of age to the scene, even though it was actually taken this year.

The technique can be used to Add warmth to an image instilling not necessarily age to the picture but atmosphere.

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Sepia has a wide range of applications now other than its original meaning.

Let me apologise for the scarcity of my posts over the last 2 weeks but this has been due to a telephone line fault resulting in the loss of internet access other than via my mobile phone. Hopefully the fault will soon be fixed, we have internet now, but, it is very slow as the fault has only partly been resolved.

Tell me your thoughts on sepia, do you think it is still a viable option to enhance photographs?Let me know your thoughts via the comments section regarding anything about my blog, good or bad.

Why don’t you drop in on the other headbangers and see what they have devised as a header and post for Sepia. Just follow the links at the top of the right hand column.

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Header challenge 13th October 2010



It's headbanger time again. This weeks theme has been chosen by me and as I understand it the headbangers have been posting new headers every week for a year today being the first anniversary. So with that thought I chose for this weeks theme, celebration. Little did I know that I would have no home internet due to a fault with or telephone line. Please fix it talk talk and bt.

So todays post is once again coming courtesy of my android phone. I've even managed, (I hope) to get my banner changed, I hope you like it.

Why not let me know what you think and then head over to look at my fellow headbangers posts.

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